Workshop 2 English 11

Rojwa Legiana Rachmiadi (Oza)

PART ONE

Sonnet 18 William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Summarize what the poem means and search for a song that you feel is the best
representation of the poem above.

In this poem, Shakespeare is comparing this person he loves or he finds

attractive to the beauty of a day in the summer. Quite literally, seasons only happen a
couple of months in a year and theyre always full of ups and downs. Despite the fact
there will always be a drawback in pretty things, the beauty of this person in the sonnet
was intended to be kept eternal, and that the more people read the sonnet, the more the
sonnet is aliveas its intention. Shakespeares poems are famous for its iambic
pentameter (read unstressed, then stressed), where each line contains ten syllables
and they are then divided into five pairs. After that, the last word on every line rhymes
with the last word after the next line (these are called end rhymes), forming a pattern of
A B A B, then moving on to C D C D, E F E F, and closed by two lines with a pattern of
G G. The tone of this sonnet gives me the vibe of a strong and emotional yet
mesmerizing romantic ballad, since it is written with an old dialect. Almost all of the lines
have figurative language where most meanings arent literal. However, the connotations
does support a lot of the imagery as it uses our senses to describe what Shakespeare is
visualizing, such as the use of colors, touch, and feel. This made me think of how this
poem is something you would read on ancient ruins with green vines and pink little
flowers, next to a large hill perfectly fitted for a picnic. In my opinion, allusion was not
necessary at that timeand even if it were thereShakespeares use of words would
overshadow the allusion used.

PART TWO

I think that the song Lego House by Ed Sheeran best represents

Shakespeares 18th sonnet. The line from Sonnet 18And summer's lease hath all too
short a date, sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold
complexion dimmddescribed how the summer is far too short and at times the sun is
too hot, or often goes behind the clouds. This can be interpreted as him visualizing how
nothing is perfect and even the beautiful things in life has its downsides.

But on Lego House, instead of the significant other on the song, Ed talks about
how his downsides wont stop him from loving herAnd out of all these things I've
done, I think I love you better nowwhile still appreciating and accepting each others
flaws, using it as a drive to build each other back up I'm gonna paint you by numbers
and colour you in, If things go right we can frame it and put you on a wall.

In the end, both Sonnet 18 and Lego House aspires in keeping this idea of this
beautiful subject to some extent immortal. They portray the thought of forever by using
the common senses we use everyday, and picturing it as if those senses are no longer
needed. Sonnet 18When in eternal lines to time thou growst, so long as men can
breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee, Lego House
Im out of sight, Im out of mind, Ill do it all for you in time, Now I'll surrender up my
heart and swap it for yours.